Another story worth paying attention to is the Haas team (specifically Grosjean as a driver) actually being competitive in their first year as a team.

This is also my first year in F1 and apparently it's been a good year to get started with it :)

The announcers did seem really excited by Grosjean's performance this week. I'll make sure I keep up with them.

Do you think Hamilton or Bottas was in the wrong when they touched in the first turn? I thought it was Hamiton's fault for not giving Bottas room to pass. He had a lot more momentum going into that turn. I don't know all the rules, so there may have been an obvious violation.

There's a contingent of us outside of GWJ amongst the Clevelanders who follow the sport. I'll give you the best primer that I can.

You picked up on one thing for sure: Mercedes are dominant. This has been true of 2014 and 2015 as well. They have handled the change to the new hybrid cars (yes, these are hybrid race cars, although very different from your average Prius) much better than any other team to date - however, in 2015, we started to see a glimmer of hope for breaking their dominance in the team you've labeled as unreliable - Ferrari.

Ferrari has been around for ages in the sport (indeed, they're special among the teams in that, whenever a decision is to be made, they're the ONLY team with a veto), but between 2014 and 2015 saw a real shakeup in the team. People were let go and replaced, and the current team principle, Maurizio Arrivabene, is credited for changing Ferrari from a hostile workplace environment to a team that really works well together. As a result, 2015 saw Ferrari with a car, and power unit ("power unit" or PU is the term used when describing the hybrid engine system as a whole) that cleared most of the field and was dogging Mercedes all season. That said, the 2015 PU was kind-of thrown together. Not entirely, because, c'mon, it's Ferrari, but they did have to do some work with previous designs and manage with what they had.

There are big expectations for Ferrari in 2016 - mainly, in making them a challenger to Mercedes, although the reliability issues are a developing story which may ultimately not pan out to be anything more than different problems in these last two races (they have a new injection system this year, which is what failed and took Vettel out of Bahrain, and Raikonnen was taken out of Melbourne by a failed turbo).

The McLaren Honda team was also kind-of a big deal in 2015. McLaren Honda is a legendary combo, as they were a dominant team fairly consistently in the 80's and 90's. Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna saw them through quite a few world championships. However, over the years, McLaren has sought out other engine suppliers, only recently leaving behind Mercedes, and last year, returning to partnership with Honda. This was hugely anticipated before the season began, however, the technical difficulty in developing a powerful and reliable hybrid PU proved to be fatal to the team's chances of challenging most of the field for the majority of the season - that is, when their PUs weren't exploding. Last year, the rules only allowed for 4 engine changes (2016 allows 5), and taking more than that incurs starting grid place penalties. McLaren Honda racked up a record number last year.

The story for McLaren Honda in 2016 is to see exactly how well they can do. Expectations are not high, but optimistically better than last year. In Bahrain, we saw a glimmer of hope in Stoffel Vandoorne, a backup driver sitting in for Fernando Alonso after his horrific crash in Melbourne, bringing the McLaren Honda car to a points finish.

Haas is turning out to be something of a Cinderella story - a brand new American team, the only one in the sport for 30 years, not only clearing the midfield, but making real challenges to the rest of the teams. Lots of people credit this to two things - picking up an experienced driver in Grosjean, and basically developing a car that uses as many Ferrari parts as it possibly can. Haas is the closest thing to a "customer car," basically a car bought from a constructor for the purpose of simply having more cars and drivers on the grid, as we've seen, although I don't think it fully qualifies, in that, Haas only purchased the parts from Ferrari that the current rules allow, and the current rules do not allow for full customer cars. Haas also worked with Dallara to build their chassis, which is a company basically known for building race cars. Plenty of people are delighted to see Haas do well. Some want an asterisk next to all of their points because of this. If they continue to do well, they will become even more controversial.

Other teams:

Williams Martini - Williams is another long-standing F1 team. At the moment, they are among some of the strongest competitors on the grid, along with...

Red Bull Racing - A newer team, who had quite a few dominant years, especially with now Ferrari driver, Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull has partnered with Renault for power units for a long time, but last season's power unit was a lemon. Renault also powered...

Scuderia Toro Rosso - An Italian farm team for Red Bull. Max Verstappen put on a stellar debut season last year, and lots of eyes are on him this year, especially since the team dumped the lemon Renault PU for last year's Ferrari power unit.

Sauber - This is another team who have been around for a decent number of seasons, although a lack of good results put them in financial trouble a while back, and they really haven't gotten out of it. Rumors abound that they'll not be on the China grid because they are out of money, although they said much the same about Lotus last year, who continued to race regardless. Lotus aren't on the grid anymore but that's because they were bought by...

Renault Sport - Usually just called "Renault," this team was thrown together at the last minute from the remnants of Lotus, by Renault wanting to continue in Formula 1, but being extremely unhappy with Red Bull's vocal complaints about their power unit (this is why the Red Bull engine is referred to as Tag Heuer; Renault got sick of the badmouthing and their treatment). Finally, we have...

Manor - This team had financial difficulty all last season, although not as bad as Lotus, but had two less than stellar drivers (who they let go) and a car with tons of weaknesses. This year, their showing has been much better thanks to Pascal Wehrlein, and the addition of 2016 Mercedes power. It's fun to watch them simply because they're not finishing last all the time.

I'm sure some of the other Ohio fans will have things to add, but this is what I've got off the top of my head.

Do you think Hamilton or Bottas was in the wrong when they touched in the first turn?

That's actually something I've been trying to figure out for the past couple of races (and with talking/racing Project CARS with the Clevelanders like NSMike). From what I've gathered, I think that since Hamilton actually had the racing line going into the turn, that's why Bottas got the penalty? Basically if he couldn't pass Hamilton before the apex, then he should have let Hamilton have the position.

Although, from my understanding, this is always kind of a grey area when it comes to F1, and it's why they have the stewards everywhere reviewing these incidents as they happen. There isn't a hard and fast rule when it comes to that kind of situation.

Of course, this is also my first year with F1 so I'm sure I'll be getting things wrong left and right

Yep, pretty much, the line is everything. Back in time they favored a who was in front stance for a while, but after a season of people doing high speed last minute cut ins on corners, went back to the line rulings.

Part of the qualifying mess is to make it more interesting - at the tracks around the world an F1 race is in effect a 5 day event, but in practice the vast majority of the fans only appear on race day (for many other reasons too; a lot of the tracks don't allow camping/RV access of the like that's common in NASCAR for example). Bernie (Ecclestone, who with the team bosses control the sport) has been trying to improve the interest and spectator excitement in qualifying for a while.

The qualifying fiasco started with Bernie (he's basically a wealthy magnate who owns a significant portion of the owning stake of F1) proposing a crazy reverse-grid after qualifying, meaning those who do best go to the back of the grid, trying to shake up the racing. When the teams (rightfully) flipped him the bird on that idea, Bernie got pouty and demanded some kind of change. One of the ideas was this elimination qualifying. The idea was that it would limit the times teams could go out on track pretty significantly (it has) thus making it possible some upstart could put up a really good time and eliminate a much better team. What's actually happened is that the best teams still put up the best times, and the rest of the grid just says, "Meh, with the midfield where it is, we're not going to risk putting more wear on tires we have to use during the race just to get 2 more grid places. Let's put the car away."

This is a problem because the previous qualifying format could be damn exciting, whereas in this case, during Melbourne, the last qualifying session resulted in a full four minutes of no cars on track, and Q2 in Bahrain with exactly one car even still out there.

Spectators who like qualifying have been disappearing from the stands, so it's actually been far worse for getting fans involved in the events. Seeing as how this fact didn't cause them to immediately reverse the decision, I don't think they care about how many people are in the stands for qualifying at all (although I bet the tracks are not happy that it's now even more obvious that they don't have to show up on Saturday).

Do you think Hamilton or Bottas was in the wrong when they touched in the first turn? I thought it was Hamiton's fault for not giving Bottas room to pass. He had a lot more momentum going into that turn. I don't know all the rules, so there may have been an obvious violation.

Turn one in every race is particularly tricky. It is pretty surprising when there is no contact on turn one in a F1 race. The general rule is that the driver that is challenging the position must be the one to avoid contact. The type of collision between Hamilton and Bottas is probably one of the most common that happen at the start of the race.

Once the race starts to settle and drivers aren't reacting to as much chaos collisions tend to be a bit more open when determining who is at fault. The move Bottas took into turn one may have been viewed differently had it been lap 35 and they were the only two drivers on that turn.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Are there any documentaries/movies/shows I should watch to give me a bit of history? I have seen the Senna documentary and movie.

From what everything I have heard about the movie Rush it is a very faithful account of the 1976 season in Formula 1.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Buy! Buy so you can be an ostrich who kills dinosaurs by kicking them in the face!

The qualifying fiasco started with Bernie (he's basically a wealthy magnate who owns a significant portion of the owning stake of F1) proposing a crazy reverse-grid after qualifying, meaning those who do best go to the back of the grid, trying to shake up the racing. When the teams (rightfully) flipped him the bird on that idea, Bernie got pouty and demanded some kind of change. One of the ideas was this elimination qualifying. The idea was that it would limit the times teams could go out on track pretty significantly (it has) thus making it possible some upstart could put up a really good time and eliminate a much better team. What's actually happened is that the best teams still put up the best times, and the rest of the grid just says, "Meh, with the midfield where it is, we're not going to risk putting more wear on tires we have to use during the race just to get 2 more grid places. Let's put the car away."

This is a problem because the previous qualifying format could be damn exciting, whereas in this case, during Melbourne, the last qualifying session resulted in a full four minutes of no cars on track, and Q2 in Bahrain with exactly one car even still out there.

Spectators who like qualifying have been disappearing from the stands, so it's actually been far worse for getting fans involved in the events. Seeing as how this fact didn't cause them to immediately reverse the decision, I don't think they care about how many people are in the stands for qualifying at all (although I bet the tracks are not happy that it's now even more obvious that they don't have to show up on Saturday).

Good points, in view of these and the recent letters from the drivers, hopefully the qualifying mess will get a few more revisions during the season.

You picked a better season than the last couple to jump in, and you'll have lots of time to learn as you go before the new regs come in 2017. It's so far still heartbreaking being an Alonso/Button fan, but things are looking up for Raikkonen, your favourite driver.

Funny you mention getting into F1 when you lost interest in football. I started following F1 in 2012 after it was clear the Canucks weren't going to recover from their Stanley Cup loss, and also I had a newborn so I was up at 5am and could watch the races live. The Canucks still suck, and I later got a PVR, plus a few other series since started good online coverage (WRC) or started altogether (WEC, World RX), so I'm pretty much only motorsports now.

Mrs. Gravey follows F1 for the excellent soap opera.

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

Essentially an unknown from Indonesia (Rio Haryanto) was voted the Driver of the Day and F1 gave it to Grosjean because.... reasons? Seems silly to fix a poll that is voted on by the fans and means nothing.

Essentially an unknown from Indonesia (Rio Haryanto) was voted the Driver of the Day and F1 gave it to Grosjean because.... reasons? Seems silly to fix a poll that is voted on by the fans and means nothing.

This sums it up:

Poor Formula One is quickly learning about the amusing but rather weird place that is the internet.

Formula One Management and Bernie have no clue, and even less interest, in engaging fans online, social media, or the Internet in general.

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

Looks like qualifying is going back to last year's format, thankfully. The single clutch has been doing more to mix up the grid than the limp elimination style anyway. So EverythingsTentative, if you aren't yet, I recommend watching qualifying since it's basically half the race (even if the top four are as predictable as the sun rising in the east).

MAKE QUALI GREAT AGAIN

(I think that's what Niki Lauda's hat says.)

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

It looks like the race is going to be at 3 am my time. How is everyone going to watch this week? I think I can use PS Vue similar to a DVR but it streams instead of saving it to a hard drive. The night race from last week made viewing super convenient.

It looks like the race is going to be at 3 am my time. How is everyone going to watch this week? I think I can use PS Vue similar to a DVR but it streams instead of saving it to a hard drive. The night race from last week made viewing super convenient.

I always PVR it and watch in the evenings (if it isn't conveniently timed like Bahrain was): quali on Saturday evening, race on Sunday evening. Then my RSS feeds are fit to bursting by Monday morning since I don't even dare check Jalopnik all weekend.

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

They could, but, I don't think we established that's how this thread would work, and it's fairly trivial to spoiler posts. Nothing is worse than blithely clicking on unread posts and hitting a spoiler for something you weren't expecting.